Fossilized Ribs
| Fossilized Ribs | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Collection |
| Location | Artifact Spots at the Island South (25%) Bone Node (1.35%) |
| Sell Price | 100g |
The Fossilized Ribs are the ribcage of Professor Snail's big specimen, and the easiest bone of the set to stumble across by accident. Wiggling artifact spots on the southern beach of Ginger Island, right where Willy's boat ties up, give them about a quarter of the time, so a hoe swung on the way past the dock usually does the job within a week. Bone nodes at the Dig Site hold them too, but only very rarely, which makes the beach the sensible place to look. One ribcage completes that part of the Large Animal, and the professor pays in Golden Walnuts and a Banana Sapling once the whole skeleton stands. Any further ribs are better off in a Bone Mill or on a Sewing Machine spool than in a villager's hands, since the gift is universally loathed.
The in-game description reads: Long ago, these ribs protected the body of a large animal.
Overview
Artifact spots show up as small worms poking out of the ground, and the southern strip of Ginger Island grows a fresh crop of them every day. Tilling one with a hoe gives whatever that map has on its list, and on Island South the ribs are a common entry at roughly one spot in four. Because the boat lands on that same beach, a daily sweep costs almost nothing: walk the sand, dig everything that wiggles, then carry on inland.
The Dig Site offers a second route for anyone already mining there. Bone nodes crack open into bone fragments and occasionally a whole bone, and the ribs are on that table, although the odds are slim enough that nobody should rely on them. A farmer who is breaking nodes for the two legs will sometimes get the ribs thrown in.
Professor Snail only starts collecting once he is out of his cave. The northern path to the Dig Site is cut by a broken bridge that a parrot will mend for ten Golden Walnuts, and the cave behind it is sealed by a boulder that nothing but an explosive will shift. After that he sets up in the Field Office tent and marks out four skeletons on the wall, the Large Animal being the one that needs this ribcage along with a pair of legs, a skull, a spine and a tail.
Only the finished frame pays. The six walnuts and the Banana Sapling arrive together when the last bone is slotted in, so the ribs on their own change nothing except the display. If a bone will not turn up, the donation menu carries a hint button, and the professor names the place to look.
Spare ribcages have two quiet uses. Fed into a Bone Mill, each one comes back as fertiliser, either Quality Fertilizer, plain or Deluxe Speed-Gro, or Tree Fertilizer, and the mill occasionally doubles the batch. Dropped into the spool of a Sewing Machine, it comes out as the Skeleton Shirt, and the same bone dyes cloth yellow at the pots inside 2 Willow Lane.
Notes
The Banana Sapling is the real prize of this skeleton. Planted on Ginger Island it grows into a Banana Tree and fruits for the rest of the save, and the Island Trader sells the Banana Pudding recipe for a pile of bone fragments, so the dig and the dessert end up feeding each other.
A hoe is worth bringing on every island trip for this reason alone. The same beach spots that hide the ribs also turn up Golden Coconuts, and those are the only place the matching skull ever appears.
All Collections
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
